International surfer Lakey Peterson is coming to the big screen in 805 Beer’s Making Waves documenting her rise to fame and focus on mental wellness, including how narrowly missing the Olympic roster became her catalyst for deeper discovery. “You don’t remember the wins or the losses,” she reflects. You remember the in-between moments – being […]

The audience for Santa Barbara Symphony’s latest concert at the venerable Granada was certainly ore-struck! The musicians – under Grammy-winning guest conductor Lucas Richman, music director of the Bangor Symphony, and backed by a giant movie screen – played the score from Charlie Chaplin’s 1925 film The Gold Rush, whose story was based on the […]

It was quite a week for the local charity Hearts Aligned which helps critically ill children and their families. The nonprofit threw its third annual Hearts to Hearts Valentine’s lunch emceed by radio host Catherine Remak at the Ritz-Carlton Bacara for 250 guests raising an impressive $200,000 for the cause. Just 48 hours later Catherine […]

Howard Jay Smith has just published his latest musical work Viva Violetta & Verdi following two years of diligent research and 18 months of writing. Howard’s research also included many interviews with the late local Metropolitan Opera tenor Eduardo Villa, who shared a lifetime of working in opera and performed 18 of Verdi’s operas in […]

Social gridlock reigned at vintner and animal activist Gretchen Lieff’s La Lieff tasting room in the Funk Zone when she hosted a Hearts & Rosé bash for 100 guests on Valentine’s Day. Singer Nicole Sophia entertained on guitar while DJ Joseph Souza provided a throbbing musical background. There was also a photo booth for amorous […]

It was definitely a 90-minute production with a difference when Cirque Kalabanté performed at the Lobero, part of the popular UCSB Arts & Lectures series. The show, Afrique en Cirque, was created by Yamoussa Bangoura, a multidisciplinary artist of Guinean origin, who eventually joined his country’s Circus Baobab touring Africa and Europe. In early 2000 […]

Former ballerina and photographer Jenna Reichental hosted a Palm Royale-themed belated birthday bash thrown by her husband Avi at their Toro Canyon Jenavi Vineyards for 80 guests. Oozing chic and elegance befitting a Palm Beach, Florida crowd, the boffo bash drew on the Apple+ TV series, starring Montecito comedienne Carol Burnett and high society in […]

Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, which celebrates its 25th anniversary next month, opened its first exhibition of the year – Above Your Dreams by local artist Kevin A. Short, which runs through May 11. The colorful exhibit of more than 40 oil paintings showcases Short’s deftness at capturing fleeting beauty and the power of sunlight through […]

What excellent timing! The Belmond El Encanto just launched a cinematic speaker series which happily coincided with the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The series featured Ojai-based scriptwriter and producer Stephen Cornwell, son of prolific spy novelist David Cornwell, who used the pseudonym John le Carré when he wrote such bestsellers as The Spy Who […]